Plexi-Block #1

A Plexiglas Block with Drilled Holes

Explanation

This piece was actually a material and technique study for a later project. I needed to practice with drilling a hole into a plexiglas block and then drilling a smaller hole down at the bottom. Luckily, I had some blocks of plexiglas lying around so I could practice, because I'm notoriously bad at drilling holes perpendicular to the surface of a material.

I drilled four holes total, and the last one was good enough that I switched to the real project. Instead of just throwing the block away, though, I decided to call it art and keep it. One of the holes (rear left in the above photo) leans over way too far and breaks out of the side, which looks pretty neat.

Materials

• A roughly 2.5" cube of clear acrylic, that I bought at one of the two plastics retailers in Philadelphia.

I also used some drill bits, an electric drill, and some fine sand paper.

The Process

For each hole, I drilled a big deep hole and then drilled a shorter, thinner hole at the bottom. I originally wanted the small hole to be along the edge, as you can see in the front left hole, which was the first one I drilled. Once I drilled the deeper holes, I found out how hard it is to position a drill bit correctly at that depth without a drill press, and just let it drill down in the center.